"Did the Maya really predict that the world would end in December of 2012? If not, how and why has 2012 millenarianism gained such popular appeal? In this deeply knowledgeable book, two leading historians of the Maya answer these questions in a succinct, readable, and accessible style. Matthew Restall and Amara Solari introduce, explain, and ultimately demystify the 2012 phenomenon. They begin by briefly examining the evidence for the prediction of the world's end in ancient Maya texts and images, analyzing precisely what Maya priests did and did not prophesize. The authors then convincingly show how 2012 millenarianism has roots far in time and place from Maya cultural traditions, but in those of medieval and Early Modern Western Europe. Revelatory and myth-busting, while remaining firmly grounded in historical fact, this fascinating book will be essential reading as the countdown to December 21, 2012, begins." --- They're speaking here on Nov. 28th, but I suspect I won't be able to make it.

I have been avoiding reading Graber's book, since it didn't sound like it was any advance over Polanyi's (classic!) _The Great Transformation_.  But this is great, so I'm sold.

"Gentlemen and Amazons traces the nineteenth-century genesis and development of an important contemporary myth about human origins: that of an original prehistoric matriarchy. Cynthia Eller explores the intellectual history of the myth, which arose from male scholars who mostly wanted to vindicate the patriarchal family model as a higher stage of human development. Eller tells the stories these men told, analyzes the gendered assumptions they made, and provides the necessary context for understanding how feminists of the 1970s and 1980s embraced as historical “fact” a discredited nineteenth-century idea."

"IWilliams is not actually examining the accepted scholarship which Carol Sheriff is referencing. Williams is not debating with James McPherson's ... Battle Cry of Freedom. He does not confront historian Bruce Levine's Confederate Emancipation... Instead Williams offers up--unchallenged, uncorroborated and wholly accepted--primary testimony from 150 years ago, along with two works of history both more than seventy-five years old.
"... Williams is practicing history in the manner of a phrenologist practicing brain surgery... In raising primary sources to the level of indisputable fact, Williams employs a methodology which does not merely argue for the existence of black Confederate legions, but for UFOs, orcs, the Dover Demon, elves and magic. The sable Confederate arm is too modest. Surely, Nessie awaits. I would not demand that history remain solely the property of professionals. But I would simply see a basic commitment to honesty from academics plying a borrowed trade...."

"The case of Fred Hoyle’s prediction of a resonance state in carbon-12, unknown in 1953 when it was predicted, is often mentioned as an example of anthropic prediction. However, an investigation of the historical circumstances of the prediction and its subsequent experimental confirmation shows that Hoyle and his contemporaries did not associate the level in the carbon nucleus with life. Only in the 1980s, after the emergence of the anthropic principle, did it become common to see Hoyle’s prediction as anthropically significant. At about the same time mythical accounts of the prediction and its history began to abound. Not only has the anthropic myth no basis in historical fact, it is also doubtful if the excited levels in carbon-12 and other atomic nuclei can be used as an argument for the predictive power of the anthropic principle."

Why am I not surprised?

Another childhood myth punctured.

Chapter 1 is online, and grimly fascinating in itself.

Context for "Retreat, hell . . . we’re simply attacking in another direction."

I really need to read Coates's book.

"In the years after World War II, Westerners and Japanese alike elevated Zen to the quintessence of spirituality in Japan. Pursuing the sources of Zen as a Japanese ideal, Shoji Yamada uncovers the surprising role of two cultural touchstones: Eugen Herrigel’s Zen in the Art of Archery and the Ryoanji dry-landscape rock garden. ... Herrigel’s book popularized ideas of Zen both in the West and in Japan. Yamada traces the prewar history of Japanese archery, reveals how Herrigel mistakenly came to understand it as a traditional practice, and explains why the Japanese themselves embraced his interpretation ... Turning to Ryoanji ... this epitome of Zen in fact bears little relation to Buddhism and is best understood in relation to Chinese myth. For much of its modern history, Ryoanji was a weedy, neglected plot; only after its allegorical role in a 1949 Ozu film was it popularly linked to Zen."

Eric Rauchway describes, with excerpts, an essay by on this subject by Maurice Bloch, with illustrations from WWI. Sounds astonishingly like Dan Sperber, only with an unfortunate collectivist overlay.

"the stories of decline in intellectual or scholarly standards that are profoundly anti-intellectual or unscholarly in their content and claims."

"Although some skeptical researcher labels them as 'bullshit', there's probably something more, from a psychological point of view, justifying their strong appeal." Or: _The Da Vinci Code_ as the "Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" we deserve.

"A leading Civil War historian debunks many of the myths of the old South being circulated by neo-Confederate ideologues"

"New evidence points to an alternative explanation for a civilization's collapse": viz., rats, and the white man.

No, Woodrow Wilson did not regret creating the Federal Reserve. Yes, the supposed statement to that effect circulated among wingnuts is a fabrication, stitched together from unrelated statements and whole cloth.